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Sun, 07.09.18939

A Black Surgeon Performs The First Successful Open-Heart Surgery In America

Daniel H. Williams

On this date, in 1893, Black surgeon Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful American open-heart surgery.

Dr. Williams completed the operation on a young man named James Cornish. He had been rushed to Provident Hospital in Chicago, a hospital that Dr. Williams had founded and one of the few hospitals that welcomed African Americans--with a stab wound. Williams repaired the wound with the use of sutures.

Sometimes, open-heart surgery is referred to as an invasive procedure

To become a Doctor

Reference:

Biography.com

Columia Surgery.org

Black First:
2,000 years of extraordinary achievement
by Jessie Carney Smith
Copyright 1994 Visible Ink Press, Detroit, MI
ISBN 0-8103-9490-1

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